In another world, in another age…
Rhomu poked his head out from under his lean-to shelter’s roof of leaves and branches. The rest of the camp remained asleep as far as he could see, the campfire having shrunk into a pile of dim embers. It was the pale glow of Grandfather Moon beaming through the treetop canopy, gleaming on the mist and the damp undergrowth, that helped Rhomu see through the darkness. For that, he was thankful.
He crawled out of the shelter with a hunter’s practiced silence, carrying his bone-pointed spear for protection. After a second scan of the camp around him, he glided on his toes out into the jungle beyond. A gentle warmth embraced Rhomu as he followed a familiar game trail. It was not the humid heat of the night, but something far stronger.
A loud crunch split through the nocturnal singing of crickets and frogs. Rhomu tensed to a halt with cold sweat on his brow. Branches cracked beneath heavy pounding on the moist earth. It was coming his way.
Rhomu hurried to hide between the high buttress roots of a kapok tree, hugging his spear while his heart drummed. Across the trail ahead lumbered a massive bull hornface on its four stout legs. The creature’s scaled hide shone like wet pebbles from the moonlight, and a glinting pair of horns longer than Rhomu’s spear curved out of its brow over two stubbier horns on its snout. A missing chunk of the rigid frill that shielded its neck attested to a survived confrontation with a mighty deathjaw, and the broken shaft of a hunter’s spear jutted out of its hip.
The hornface stopped to snip at some fan palm saplings with its hooked beak. While it browsed, Rhomu crept past it on all fours, careful not to snap a single twig on the jungle floor. Hornfaces may have eaten plants rather than flesh, but they could be as aggressive and dangerous as any deathjaw, not to mention vindictive.
Once he had sneaked out of the beast’s earshot, Rhomu rose back to his feet and jogged down the trail. The flutter in his stomach returned to lift him up with every step. All remaining thought of danger subsided under his eager anticipation. When the trickling of a low waterfall reached Rhomu’s ears, he accelerated into a joyful skip.
It was to his pleasant surprise to find Djula already there on the stream’s bank. The curves of her dark-skinned figure glistened like fine obsidian beneath Grandfather Moon’s gaze, and the coils of her black hair sparkled. Between cheeks dotted with traditional scarification, her full lips spread into a smile of white teeth brighter than either Grandfather Moon or Grandmother Sun. Rhomu’s heart erupted into a ceremony of jubilant percussion.